The director general of the Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML) has called on the Bank of England (BoE) to address the "ongoing problems" in the mortgage market in the wake of new figures which show gross lending fell in February.

With the majority of analysts predicting that the base rate of interest will be cut at least once more in 2008, an increasing number of first-time buyers (FTBs) are choosing to take out tracker-rate mortgages.